


Sometimes Good Things Fall Apart

by anotherwinchesterfangirl



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Angst, Cheating, F/M, Jealousy, Smut, Unplanned Pregnancy, relationship drama
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-27
Updated: 2019-06-27
Packaged: 2020-05-20 12:39:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19376890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anotherwinchesterfangirl/pseuds/anotherwinchesterfangirl
Summary: Hawkins High School, Class of '65





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> My take on some Joyce x Hopper back story. I think I made them a little younger than they actually are in order to make this timeline work, but *shrug.* They are both 18, so I did not mark this as underage, but if that squicks you then this might not be the fic for you. :)
> 
> Title taken from the song Good Things Fall Apart by Jon Bellion/ILLENIUM.

Part One

Hawkins High School • 1964

 

She sees the tendrils of smoke before she can see him, and the corners of her mouth nudge up just slightly, a tinge of butterflies in her stomach. She glances quick over her shoulder—the hallway behind her is crammed with students shuffling between classes, no one even glancing her way—before swinging around the railing and ducking under the stairs. He’s sitting with his back against the concrete block wall, knees up in front of him, and he smiles around his cigarette when he sees her, his eyes all but disappearing. The butterflies in her stomach ratchet up a notch or two.

“Hey, babe,” he says as she sets her books on the floor and takes a seat on top of them, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. They’re nearly knee to knee. 

“Hey, you.” 

He passes her the cigarette, blowing smoke up toward the underside of the stairs, toward the footsteps pounding down over their heads. His hair is slicked but falling in his eyes, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up above his elbows. 

She accepts the smoke with a smile, closing her lips around where his have just been and inhaling. They only have three minutes until the bell, but it’s enough. She takes another drag before handing it back to him. 

“You study for Murph’s test?” he asks. Joyce bites her lip, watching the way the cigarette bounces between his lips when he talks. She can’t believe he’s asking her about some stupid test after last night. After that kiss by the pool at Debbie Miller’s party that left her hot all over and aching for more. She still can’t stop thinking about it—about how soft his lips were and how gently he cradled the back of her head in his hands. 

Their knees knock together as she leans forward, plucks the cigarette from his mouth, and crashes her lips into his. He tastes like nicotine and something faintly sweet, like powdered donuts. He seems a bit surprised at first, but he catches on quick, one hand sliding up her thigh, just under the hem of her skirt. She parts her lips for him and he leans in, his other hand going to her shoulder and pulling her against him. But before he can get any further, she leans back and takes a long drag on the cigarette. 

“Gotta go,” she says, smiling at the surprise written all over his face. She feels like laughing, but she plays it cool. “Wouldn’t want to be late for that test.” 

The noise in the hallway has almost completely died down—a sure sign that the bell is about to ring. She hands the cigarette back to him and scoops up her books. 

“See you later?” he asks, his voice significantly rougher than it had been a minute ago. He clears his throat.

“I’ll be at the game tonight.”

He nods, his gaze burning into hers as he lifts the now stub of a cigarette back to his own lips, one last drag, and then crushes it under the heel of his shoe. 

“See you later, Hopper,” Joyce calls over her shoulder as she ducks out of their smoke-filled hideaway and heads to sixth period.

***

“Bob the Brain!” Jim projects his voice over the noise of the game announcer coming from the stadium, aiming toward the chubby kid carrying a tuba toward his Volvo. The marching band halftime show must have just ended.

“Heya, Jim!” Bob calls back with a wave. 

“You see Joyce in there?” Jim asks, turning and pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, back toward the stadium. 

“You betcha! She’s at the top with Linda and Debbie and the others.” 

God bless Bob Newby. Half the school didn’t know his name, but he knew nearly everything. And a hell of a lot about Algebra, too. Jim may or may not be passing now, thanks to good ole Bob. 

In the stadium, Jim takes the steps of the bleachers two at a time, scanning the crowd for Joyce’s dark hair in the top rows. 

“About time you showed up.” 

His stomach clenches at the sound of her voice, and he spins around. She’s holding a bag of popcorn and a can of Coke and smiling up at him like he just handed her the moon. She’s changed out of her school clothes and into slim-fitting jeans and a Hawkins High sweater and little white sneakers. 

“Hey,” is all he can grit out because the sheer force of how badly he wants her has just hit him like a freight train. That searing, cigarette-flavored kiss under the stairs earlier has had him half-hard all fucking day, and  _ god _ he has to make it through the entire second half of the game before he can taste her again. He sucks in a breath.

“C’mon, I saved you a seat,” she chirps, turning on one heel. It takes his brain a minute to catch up, and he scrambles through the crowd to follow her toward the row where Debbie Miller and Linda Jennings are perched on the edge of a bleacher next to a couple of guys that he can’t remember the names of. 

“Hey, Hopper,” Debbie says, smiling knowingly, her eyes darting back and forth between him and Joyce. 

He lifts a hand in greeting. “Ladies.” 

Joyce scoots down the bench, leaving the end open for him and he squeezes in, thankful to have the aisle so his knees aren’t going into the back of the person in front of him. She tips her bag of popcorn toward him and he takes a few kernels, popping them into his mouth. He feels a little awkward since he hardly ever comes to these things—he usually has better things to do and the Hawkins High School Football team isn’t even good—but being so close to her, feeling the warmth of her leg against his, hearing her little noises of excitement and defeat with the game. It’s worth it. 

Hawkins loses, and they gather at the bottom of the bleachers with her friends, who seem to be discussing whether or not it would be worth it to try to get a seat at Gillespie's, the diner in town.

Jim snakes an arm around Joyce’s waist and leans down until her hair is tickling his face. His lips graze the shell of her ear as he whispers, “Let’s get outta here.” 

She twists in his arm to look up at him, so fucking small, with that lip-biting smile that obliterates him every time. “Okay,” she says, and he squeezes her around the waist and steers her into the crowd of people heading toward the parking lot. 

***

He parks the Plymouth at the top of the junkyard, between a broken down RV and an ancient-looking school bus, and kills the engine. A lot of couples park out overlooking the quarry where the view is better, but this is smarter. They blend right in. No cops walking up on the car here. Nobody else around to send rumors about them floating down the halls of Hawkins High.

“The junkyard, huh?” Joyce says teasingly, wiping her nervous-sweaty palms against the thighs of her jeans. “Is this where you bring all your girls?” She instantly wants to smack herself for saying that. Yeah, Hopper’s been known to sleep around a little, but the last thing she wants to talk about is other girls. 

“All my girls?” he says on a huff of a laugh, raising an eyebrow at her, and she flushes hot all over. 

She doesn’t know why she’s suddenly so nervous—she’s been with plenty of boys, made out in plenty of cars. She knows how to smile coyly and giggle at just the right time. She knows what boys like and what they like about her. But for some reason it feels different with Jim. She’s never had anyone look at her like he looks at her—like he never wants to  _ stop _ looking at her. And she’s never been quite so desperate to feel a boy’s lips on her skin, to see what he can do with his hands. 

She can feel her nervousness and desperation filling the space between them, and she’s so aware of it that it’s just making her even more nervous and desperate. She doesn’t know what to do; she has a wild desire to crack a window or something, a release valve. 

“Hopper—” she starts, not knowing what she’s going to say. 

“Hey,” he interrupts, his voice so low and gentle that it makes her chest ache. “C’mere.” 

She scoots across the bench seat toward him, until her left hip bumps into his thigh, and looks up into his handsome face. His eyes are so blue this close. She wants to stay in his gaze forever. 

His hand cups her cheek, runs light down along her jaw. “Do you want me to take you home?” he asks. 

“No.” Her voice is barely a whisper. 

“Do you want me to kiss you?” 

“Yes,” she breathes, not even caring at this point how needy her voice sounds. 

Especially when his kiss is equally as needy, swallowing down her gasp like a starving man. His tongue slides against hers, his hands cradling her face, gentle but firm, and she lights up, every nerve in her body tingling with need and want, the throb between her legs the absolute neediest. 

She arches against him, fisting her hands in the front of his shirt, as he kisses down the side of her neck to her collarbone, one of his hands sliding down to cup her breast. 

“Oh, Hop,” she moans as he brushes over her peaked nipple with his thumb. Even through her bra and her sweater, it’s the best thing she’s ever felt. She can feel his lips grin against her skin, just above the collar of her shirt, and it makes her smile too. Yeah, she’s been with other boys, made out in other cars, but it has never ever felt like  _ this _ . 

The windows are thoroughly fogged over when he finally lowers her across the seat, her knees falling open to make space for him on top of her, and even though they are both still fully clothed, her gasp when he presses against her fills the car. 

She cries out as he continues rocking against her, one of his hands up under her bra now, and she shatters apart under him in less than a minute, trembling all over and gasping for breath. There’s that release valve. 

She clenches her fist around his collar and drags him down to her, crashing their lips together again. Desperate and hungry and wanting to make him feel the same satisfaction, she reaches down between them and presses her palm against his bulging jeans. He groans her name into her mouth. 

She reaches for his belt buckle, and he stills, pulling back an inch. 

“Joyce, I—” he stutters. “Don’t. Unless...unless you’re sure you wanna—” His words cut off into another groan of pleasure as she drags her hand over him again. His jeans are stretched so tight it’s gotta hurt, she thinks. 

“Hop, I’m sure,” she says. He’s looking down between them, where her hands are now still over his belt buckle, his shirt pushed up so she can see the trail of dark hair leading down into his jeans. 

“Because if we...I just want you to be  _ sure _ .” 

“Hopper.” She brings one hand up to his chin and forces his face up so she can look him in the eye. Her voice doesn’t waver when she says, “Jim.  _ I’m sure _ .”

“Well in that case…” He reaches over and pops open the glove box and fishes out a condom, and then he’s unbuckling his belt and pushing his pants down and off one leg. She has no idea how he’s managing that in the cramped space as she barely shimmies her own jeans and panties down under her ass. He helps her pull them off the rest of the way, and then he’s over her again, kissing her slower now, not quite as desperate now that they know where they’re headed. 

When he slides inside her, nothing else matters but that moment. The rest of the world stretches away. It’s just them, in his car, moving so gently, like he thinks he might break her. He’s breathing hard in her ear, and she bites her lip, clutching the back of his shirt in her hands. 

“Oh, fuck, Joyce,” he breathes in her ear, and she’s trembling all around him again, feeling the world crash back into her as he stills, one hand still gripping her hip. He drops his forehead against hers, both of them catching their breath. 

After a moment, Jim sucks in a breath. “So, whataya say, Joyce. Wanna be my girl? I mean, I brought you to the junkyard and everything.” 

She giggles.  _ Hopper’s girl. _ She likes the sound of it. She cups his cheek with her hand and looks into his smiling eyes as she says, “Yeah, I’ll be your girl.”

He sits back, turning toward the driver’s side door so she can’t see as he cleans himself up and somehow pulls his pants back on. “Wanna go for a milkshake to celebrate?” he asks, giving her that smile that makes his eyes disappear. 

She laughs again, sitting up and reaching for her clothes, her skin still warm in all the places he’s touched her. And she can feel herself balancing at the edge of it—the fierce, terrifying tumble of falling in love with Jim Hopper.


	2. Part Two

Part Two

Hawkins High School • 1965

  
Joyce slams her locker shut and yelps, nearly dropping her books. Hop’s standing there, grinning from ear to ear. He grabs her around the waist and kisses her neck. 

“Let’s go to the drive in tonight.” 

It’s Friday and the first really nice spring day they’ve had—sunlight and a warm breeze coming in through the open windows. It’d be a great night for the drive in. 

“What’s playing?” she asks, leaning sideways against the locker and giving him a coy smile. 

“Joyce,” he says, all fake seriousness. “No one goes to the drive in to actually watch a movie.” He raises an eyebrow at her and she feels that familiar pull in her core. 

She giggles nervously. It’s been eight months they’ve been together, but he still gives her butterflies in her stomach. 

“Take me home first so I can change?” she asks as they turn down the hall that leads toward the parking lot. 

“Only if I can help,” he says with a wink. She nudges into him with her shoulder, but her cheeks are warm.

In the parking lot, they stop to talk to a few friends, everyone buzzing about graduation and prom and who’s going with who and who’s going away and who’s sticking around.

Joyce wanted to skip the prom. ”We don’t need to get dressed up just to impress people,” she said. “Let’s just go park somewhere instead.” But Jim convinced her that they should go. “We only get one prom,” he urged. “I don’t want you to regret it if we don’t go.” So she has a dress—a baby blue ruffley thing—and Jim has a shiny black tux. She kind of can’t wait to see him in it. 

After graduation they’re getting the hell out of Hawkins. Jim’s always wanted to move to Chicago, and she wants to go with him. She can just imagine a little apartment in the city, working at a nice department store, maybe a sparkly ring on her finger. She absently looks down at her hand, lost in thought. 

“Joyce?” Joyce snaps her head up, and Linda’s giving her a weird, sickly sweet smile. “What color is your prom dress again?” 

“Oh, blue. Light blue.” She tries to smile, but she feels on edge suddenly, defensive. Ever since Joyce and Hopper got together, her relationship with Linda has been strained. They used to be close, could talk about anything together, but lately Linda’s always in her business, asking her weird questions about Hopper and their relationship, flirting with Jim any chance she gets.  

“Oh, that’ll bring out Hop’s eyes.” Linda reaches out and touches Jim’s arm, and he grins back at her—that smile that makes his eyes disappear that he usually only gives to Joyce. Joyce feels like a brick just dropped into her stomach. 

“Well, we gotta go,” she says, grabbing Jim’s hand and pulling him toward his car. 

“You okay?” Jim asks her once they’re in the front seat. He reaches forward and strokes his fingers over her bare knee, sending tingles up her leg. Just being in his car makes her warm all over remembering all the times they’ve been together here over the past eight months. 

“Yeah, I’m fine.” She leans across the seat for a kiss—soft and easy—pushing away any jealousy left from that weird interaction with Linda. Jim is  _ her _ boyfriend. He picked  _ her _ . 

***

The Tibbs Drive In is packed, but they get a great spot in the back, where it’s darkest and most private. He rolls the windows down to let in the breeze and then turns to Joyce in the passenger seat. She’s looking so good in a skirt that shows off her legs and a little striped t-shirt that he can’t resist sliding across the seat to kiss her. He runs a hand up her bare leg and she breaks away, laughing. He could listen to her laugh for the rest of his life and never get tired of it. 

“Geez, Hop, at least wait for the movie to start,” she says, her voice light and happy. 

“You just—” He grabs one of her legs under the knee and pulls her toward him. “You look so beautiful.” He teases her with a kiss on the inside of her thigh just above the knee. When he looks up, her cheeks are pink, and he smiles smugly. “How ‘bout some popcorn?” he asks, and her face lights up just like he knew it would. 

He treks over to the snack bar, weaving his way between parked cars, the setting sun providing just enough light to see by.  The whole place is buzzing, people yelling between cars and kids running around shrieking. He can’t wait to get back to Joyce and their little bubble. He’s almost to the snack line when he hears someone calling his name, and he glances around. 

“Hopper! Hey, Hopper!” He turns to find Joyce’s friend Linda jogging toward him. He tries not to look at her chest as she bounces to a stop in front of him. 

“Hey, Linda,” he says good naturedly.  

“Thank god I found you,” she says, stepping in close and putting a hand on his arm. “My car won’t start. Will you come take a look?” She looks up at him with big, green, innocent eyes.

“Sure,” he says. He doesn’t know much about cars, but he knows enough to get by. “You probably need jumper cables. Do you have any?”

“I don’t know,” she says, grabbing his hand and leading him around the back of the snack bar, toward the bathrooms. Where the hell was she parked? 

Suddenly she stops and turns, catching him by surprise. He’s a bit off balance when she presses her hands up against his chest, pushes him against the wall next to the men’s bathroom, and plants her lips on his. He’s in shock for a moment before he grunts in surprise, grabbing her wrists, hard, and forcing her back. 

Too late. 

Over Linda’s head is Joyce, in the middle of pushing open the door to the women’s bathroom, staring right at them. He and Linda are just out of the spot of flood light illuminating the space, but there’s no denying who they are.

“Joyce.” His voice has never sounded like this—cracked and strangled and...guilty. “Joyce—” he tries again, but he can see it all over her face. The hurt. The betrayal. 

“Popcorn, huh?” Her voice wobbles, but she doesn’t cry. Not yet. 

“Joyce, this isn’t...this is  _ not _ what it looks like.” He takes a step away from Linda, wanting as much space between them as possible. 

“Oh, yeah? Then what is it?” She crosses her arms over her chest, her shoulders curling forward, trying to protect herself from whatever’s about to happen. 

Linda has the audacity to reach over and try to wrap her fingers around his, and he yanks his hand away. She’s saying something, but Jim can’t hear her over his own pounding heart beat. 

“I was going to the snack bar when Linda said her car wouldn’t start—”

“How long?” Joyce interrupts.

He stutters. “W-what?” The world is slipping sideways under him and he can’t keep his balance. 

“How long?” she repeats, like he’s hard of hearing. 

“What? Joyce, no! No, this isn’t...this isn’t anything. This is Linda wanting what she can’t have—”

“I should have known!” Joyce cries, looking at the sky, obviously fighting back tears now. “I knew you slept around! I should have known it was only a matter of time before you got sick of me.” 

“ _ What _ ?” He has to admit that stung a little. “Joyce, I am not  _ sick of you _ ! I could never get sick of you.” He wants to roar in frustration, but he knows that won’t help anything. He steps closer to her, and she takes a hasty step back. “Joyce—” his voice cracks again. 

“I’ll get a ride home with Debbie.” And she spins on her heel and disappears behind the trees. 

He tries to chase after her—he’s got to make her understand—but she disappears in the sea of cars. The movie is starting and the light is fading and he can’t see her anywhere. 

“Joyce!” he yells at the top of his lungs. 

“Shut up!” someone yells back. 

He goes car to car, peeking in windows, whispering her name over and over, getting angrier and angrier—at Linda, at Joyce, at himself. What the  _ fuck _ is happening? Does Joyce not know him  _ at all _ ? Does she really think he just goes around making out with other girls all the time? Yeah, he had a reputation, but…. He remembers that first night in his car at the junkyard, Joyce mentioning “all his girls.” Well, fuck that. He hasn’t so much as  _ looked _ at anyone else since he’s been with Joyce. He  _ loves _ Joyce. He hadn’t said it out loud yet, but he thought it was implied. 

She should  _ know _ —she should  _ trust _ him better than that. He was just trying to help Linda out because she was Joyce’s friend, and look where that got him. Fucking  _ fuck _ . How did this happen? 

Finally, he makes it back to his own car. He drives to Joyce’s house, but all the lights are off. He knocks on the door, no answer. He yells her name under her bedroom window to no avail. 

He drives home, white knuckling the steering wheel the whole way. Maybe if Joyce thought that’s the kind of guy he was, he didn’t really know her at all. 

***

Joyce walks to school on Monday morning with puffy eyes and a stomach full of knots. She’s been avoiding Hopper all weekend—he called and called and she refused to come out of her room to answer the phone—she’s not about to expect him to pick her up and drive her to school. She’s not looking forward to talking this out, but she knows they’ll have to. 

She cried all weekend, but the more she thought about it the more she came to realize there might be more to the story than she was originally willing to admit. She feels bad that she took off like she did, made him worry. 

She half expects—hopes—he’ll be waiting for her at her locker, but he’s nowhere to be seen. Even in third period, which they have together, he’s not there. She leans forward and taps Lonnie Byers on the shoulder. 

“Hey, Lonnie, is Hopper here today?” she asks. 

Lonnie shrugs. “Trouble in paradise?” he asks, raising his eyebrows. 

Joyce doesn’t respond, just sits back in her seat and crosses her arms. She barely hears any of what Mrs. Johnson says all period. Now she really feels terrible. What if he’s sick? What if he’s been in an accident? She should be there for him; she shouldn’t have given him the silent treatment like that. What if he’d been calling because he needed her, not just because she was mad at him? 

The knots in her stomach tighten and tighten throughout the day until it’s finally eighth period and she thinks she might actually be sick. Her brain has spun all kinds of outlandish scenarios about why Jim isn’t in school, and she needs to get out of this place and get to him. She needs to see him immediately, just to make sure he’s okay. 

She’s walking through the parking lot, looking for Debbie to see if she can catch a ride to Hopper’s place, when she sees him. Well, she sees his car first—that great big brown Plymouth is unmistakable—and then the back of his head. He’s facing the car, but she can’t tell what he’s doing. 

“Hop!” she cries, not even caring about the hope and relief in her voice. She’s done being mad at him, and she’s been so worried about him all day. She’s ready to feel his arms around her again. 

He doesn’t look up, so she says again, “Hoppe—” But the name dies in her mouth, cutting of in a choked whisper, when she sees what he’s doing. When she sees that there’s a girl pressed between the driver’s side door and Hopper’s body, his mouth covering hers. 

Joyce covers her mouth with her hand, a strangled sob escaping her. She thought she didn’t have any tears left to cry, but she was wrong. 

Hopper turns around, finally, and she wants to sink into the ground rather than have to look at his face, with his smug smile and his sad eyes. This doesn’t make any sense. 

“Oh, hey, Joyce,” he says, hollow.

“W-why?” is all she can choke out. People are staring now, gathering around to witness what is about to be the fallout of Joyce Horowitz and Jim Hopper. She’s gonna be sick. For real this time.

“I just figured if you were gonna accuse me of cheating, I might as well actually do it of my own accord.” His voice is all wrong, not the voice of the boy that whispered to her how beautiful she was and how he wanted to start a life with her. He puts an arm around Linda. What a liar. 

“You bastard,” she whispers, wishing she could put some force behind it, but her chest is about to crack open. 

Hopper doesn’t say anything, just stares at her, with the nerve to look like his own heart is breaking. 

Joyce turns and runs. 

She hears someone calling her name behind her, but she doesn’t stop to turn around. She doesn’t stop until she’s behind the gym where no one can see her, and she puts her head against the cement block wall and sobs. Someone’s hand is on her back, but she doesn’t turn to see who it is until she’s cried all the tears she could possibly have left. She gulps down air and wipes her eyes and turns around to see Lonnie Byers. 

“What are you doing here?” she asks, an edge in her voice that she didn’t quite mean to be there. 

Lonnie ignores it. “Let me give you a ride home,” he says, and she nods because what else is she supposed to do. 

***

He cuts school the entire week—what are they gonna do, not let him graduate? Even if they don’t, he doesn’t care. At first he’s still so mad—so  _ fucking angry _ —that he doesn’t even call her. He doesn’t want to see her. He hears that she’s going to prom with that weasel Lonnie Byers, and it makes him see red. 

Joyce didn’t trust him after all that time together, but she trusts that asshole? That she’d thought he could do something like...like what he  _ did _ . Like what he  _ actually did _ —shattered their relationship like a shotgun shell hitting a clay pigeon. He can’t stop seeing her crumpled face, the hurt in her eyes. 

On Friday, he drinks the entirety of his father’s liquor cabinet. He smokes all the cigarettes he has, and then raids his parents’ bedroom for more. He calls Joyce’s house repeatedly until her mother practically begs him to stop. 

“She’s at the prom, Jim. Please stop calling. She doesn’t want to talk to you anyway. I’m not going to answer the phone anymore tonight. Please stop calling.”

***

She lets Lonnie take her home, and she lets him take her to the prom. Mostly because everyone keeps looking at her like she’s  _ broken _ , and she can’t think of a better way to prove that she’s not. And she knows her parents spent a lot of money on that stupid dress, and she’d hate to let it go to waste. 

Lonnie picks her up at 7:00 wearing a bowtie and a jacket that’s a size too big. She thinks he looks stupid, but she doesn’t say it.

He got her a corsage. He opens the door for her. They dance and get their picture snapped. Only Joyce can tell that her smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She’s the only one that knows she’s completely hollow inside. 

When Lonnie asks her if she wants to go to his place after, she nods. And when Lonnie lays her down on the bed and fucks her, she wishes it was Jim. 

***

The next week they graduate, and Joyce still won’t look at him. He tries to get her alone, but she’s surrounded by people after the ceremony, and it’s not the place to do it anyway. Not when she’s smiling for the first time in probably a month. 

Instead he walks down to the Army Recruiter’s office and enlists. Then he goes into the post office and scrawls a message onto a  _ Wish You Were Here _ Hawkins postcard. He doesn’t even know why Hawkins has postcards, but it’ll do. 

He’s done trying to get her back—he knows he doesn’t deserve her—but he just wants her to know that he’s sorry. 

***

Two weeks after graduation, Joyce is sitting in the waiting room of the doctor’s office with her mother, actively trying not to be sick. She’s been throwing up, every day now for the past week, but that has nothing to do with the nausea she’s feeling now. 

She knew it was coming, but when the doctor says the word, “pregnant,” she thinks she might pass out. Her mother holds her hand while she cries. 

***

Hopper thinks he might be hallucinating when he answers the knock on the door and Joyce is standing on the doorstep. 

“H-hey,” he says, like an idiot. He’s been waiting weeks to talk to her, and all he can get out is “hey.” 

“Hey, um, can we talk?” Her voice is all wobbly, and he can tell she’s been crying. 

He nods and steps back. “Yeah, my parents aren’t here. Come in.”

They sit perched together on the couch in the living room, at least a foot of space between them. A far cry from the last time they were together on this couch. Jim’s chest aches with missing her. 

“What’s this?” she asks, pointing toward his open, half-full duffle bag on the floor in the middle of the room. 

“Oh, uh, boot camp. I enlisted. I leave in two days.” 

“O-oh.” Joyce looks down, and then suddenly she’s crying, great big sobs that have her gasping for air. He doesn’t care what the fuck happened between them, he’s not just gonna let her cry like that. He scoops her into his arms and pulls her into his chest. 

“Joyce, I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry. I was just...I was so angry, and I was trying to prove a point, and I did it in the stupidest fucking way imaginable.”

“I’m pregnant,” she blurts. 

Hopper’s heart stops dead, the world slipping sideways under him. A barrage of thoughts and questions invade his mind, until Joyce says—

“It’s Lonnie’s.” That just makes her cry harder. “I’m sorry,” she says, and he pulls back. 

“What the fuck are you sorry for?  _ I’m _ the one that’s sorry. I ruined everything, Joyce.” 

“No. No, what you did was...was stupid and...and hurtful, but it wasn’t  _ this _ . I could have forgiven you. I  _ would  _ have forgiven you. But it was prom, and I...I just wanted to prove that I didn’t  _ need _ you anymore. And I wasn’t thinking when Lonnie...I didn’t make sure he used protection, and now—I can’t undo this.” She breaks off into sobs, and he holds her until she’s cried herself dry, until she catches her breath and wipes her nose with the back of her hand. 

“We’re gonna get married,” she says, her voice small and quiet. He feels like he’s been gutted. “And I guess I just...I just wanted you to hear it from me before you heard it from someone else.” 

“Joyce, don’t marry that asshole,” he pleads. 

“What other choice do I have?” she says. “And Lonnie...he’s not that bad. He promised to take care of me. Of us.” She puts a hand over her stomach, and Hopper’s dying inside, but he knows she’s right. Besides, what’s he gonna do? He’s leaving for boot camp in two days. It’s too late.

She takes a deep breath and stands up. He doesn’t want her to go, but he can’t think of anything to say to make her stay. He walks her to the door, where she pauses, looking up at him with those big, brown, pleading eyes. 

“Don’t die over there, okay?” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

When she pushes up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek, he intercepts her lips with his, pouring every feeling he ever had for her into that last kiss. He cradles the back of her head gently, her tiny hands fisted against his chest. 

There are more tears in her eyes when they break apart. 

“Goodbye, Hop.” 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the heartbreak, y'all. :( 
> 
> I might have an epilogue coming, but it isn't written yet so we'll see if I can get it up sometime soon. 
> 
> Comments and kudos mean the world to me! :) Everyone enjoy Season 3!!!


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